In the past, operators of irrigation pump engines and other stationary engines have had difficulty in finding radiators to fit their engines after a previous radiator has failed. Sometimes such radiators have lasted for decades and now the owner finds that his engine is so obsolete that no one supplies a radiator that will fit his engine.
Such radiators as are often found available are not designed for stationary engines but are designed for propulsion of highway vehicles where vehicle motion assists cooling.
Usually, after much searching, the operator selects a radiator. Often the only radiators he can find are of other brands and of mismatched sizes. The hose connections are then often in unmated location with respect to the engine hose connections.
It is common for a farmer to replace a radiator with one that is not adequate, resulting in radiator breakdown in three of four years when an adequate radiator could have lasted for decades.
Because of the unavailability or excess cost of a radiator factory-mated to his engine, a stationary engine user must often couple large hoses to smaller fittings, and vice versa, by using a series of size-reducers of the double-ended threaded socket type interconnected by threaded nipples.
Such a many-jointed substitute "make-do" has many threaded connections, which can come to leak under the constant engine vibration as the years pass. As stationary engines are often in remote, seldom supervised places, this leakage continues undetected, and engines are ruined from coolant leakage and overheating. The system hereof seeks to eliminate such waste and public loss.
It is therefore a primary object of this invention to provide a cooling system so readily adaptable as to fit so many types and sizes of engines that it becomes economically practical for a company selling radiators (1) to keep a far lesser sized inventory of radiators and (2) yet satisfy the customer's much varying needs much better. This causes it to become economically practical, with this system, to sell a radiator with a safely large extra cooling capacity, thus fitting a range of both smaller and larger engines.
Such economical practicality is partly because of the time saved at installation. The radiator installation system hereof requires no welding, no cutting and no drilling in the installation stage. One size radiator stocked, can be large enough to fit engines varying greatly in radiation needs. When the single size is larger than necessary, the extra cost is more than balanced by low installation costs, and by lower dealer radiator inventory needs, because of the versatility of fitting many engine sizes and models.
Tests have shown that the cooling system hereof, having a pre-constructed unitary radiator, radiator housing, and housing support assembly, can be mounted on an engine by a workman of average ability in one hour, and by some workmen in as little as thirty to forty-five minutes. This compares with about five hours for a good workman to mount an off-the-shelf radiator to which a housing and housing support must yet be attached. This is a reduction of installation time to one-fifth or less.
With the cooling system hereof installed, if a radiator should be blown and destroyed, then a new radiator can be put in place by working with only eighteen bolts and two hose clamps. Only two bolts for each hose connection are needed.
Much down-time is experienced with breakdowns, with difficulties of slow radiator delivery and time-consuming shopping trips to locate special radiators for special engines, problems this invention seeks to eliminate.
Some pump engines are concerned with life and death itself such as for pumping oxygen in the mining industry. Breakdowns are most serious. An objective is to make it more affordable to reduce breakdown and to greatly reduce the necessity for radiator replacement. farmers ought not to gamble on installing radiators themselves. As farmers are not well enough informed about radiators they often make bad choices, or they mount a radiator with methods that cannot withstand the prolonged periods of vibration.
An objective is to provide a cooling system installable without any shimming, and without any special building. Engine hose size is determined for selecting alternative easily adapted hose necks.
Another objective is to provide a system easily installed by the farmer operator himself, without need for specially tranined radiator installers.
A futher objective is to provide the customer of a radiator shop with a possibility of one-stop-satisfaction without having to hunt from shop to shop for a special radiator, not even having to do careful measuring for the most part.
An objective is to provide a system which is well cushioned to protect against vibration damage.
An objective is to provide great versatility not only at the connections between the hoses and hose ports but also great versatility is provided by using slots for vertical adjustment of the radiator so that its fan opening is in exactly the right place for the engine that it is used with.
Although slots for versatile adjustment are used in many fields of mechanics, yet no one has been able to conceive of a use of slotted connections for radiator mounting.
Another objective hereof is to reduce engine-downtime caused by radiator failure.